Report on the marketing and branding of audit firms in South Africa
“Transformation impacts the body and soul of our businesses, and is in turn fed and nurtured by this.”
The marketing and branding of audit firms has really blossomed since the Enron disaster. Audit firms were under pressure to re-build trust from the now sceptical public. Hence they devoted time and money on branding and marketing strategies.
Restoring trust and integrity meant that audit firms had to come out to the public and market their image aggressively yet tastefully. KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) have established distinguishably different yet similarly successful brand-building strategies. PWC has arguably adopted a more introvert-like strategy that is aimed more vividly at their employees’ and prospective employees’ job satisfaction which in turn leads to professional performance and satisfied clients. KPMG on the other hand opted to market themselves as a knowledgeable and high clientele base firm. In the following paragraphs the two firms’ strategies will be discussed more comprehensively.
On face value, PWC are an attractive looking firm that draws more innovative, younger corporate directors. I personally like their tactically placed Pretoria branch opposite Menlyn Park mall. They also run a small advert in all the daily national newspapers. This advert focuses on portraying PWC as a thoroughly professional outfit. This appeals directly to the corporate community.
I was very impressed with their website. It has a “young-professional” feel about it. It makes the firm very appealing to young ambitious employees fresh from varsity. Their website is well documented and informative about almost all aspects of their firm. The firm appears extremely transpare ...